


Completely Fucking Repulsive

by TalkingAnimals



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Meteorstuck, Retcon Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 19:12:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4888714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalkingAnimals/pseuds/TalkingAnimals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He always does this. You’re sitting on the floor, helping the mayor build and re-build can town, when your leg bumps his or you reach across him to grab a can and brush him with your arm. That in itself isn’t the issue, though, because why fucking would it be, the issue is that HE always RECOILS whenever you make contact. Just now, your knee is resting against his, and you watch him shift his weight and turn so he can get away from it.</p><p>What, are you completely repulsive or something?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Completely Fucking Repulsive

*

“What?”

“I SAID, AM I COMPLETELY FUCKING REPULSIVE STRIDER?”

Okay, apparently you not only already said that out loud without realizing, you’re also fine with just going ahead and screaming about it again as soon as you figure this out. That’s fine. That’s cool.

“Dude, what are you talking about?”

“EVERY TIME. I SO MUCH AS BUMP INTO YOU. YOU JUMP OUT OF THE WAY LIKE I’M THE FUCKING HEAT DISC ON THE WORLD’S MOST IMPECCABLY UNSUPERVISED FOOD INCINERATOR. I mean,”

You start dwelling. You start trying to pick away at what could actually be the problem. It calms you down a bit outwardly, if only because you start immediately directing all your neuroses inward.

“I mean, we’re not exactly spiney as a race or anything. Despite the amount of shit Alternian kids have to go through, I don’t think we end up too hardened, at least not in a strictly physical sense, I don’t know, is this, like, way weird of a skin texture for a human to come into contact with,”

You’re rambling and you can’t stop yourself. You’re pulling up your sleeve and running your hand accross your arm, trying to judge if the skin you’ve been sitting pretty uncomfortably in for your entire life is even more abrasive than you’d realized.

“It’s kind of scaley, I guess, does it feel that unpleasant to have it bump into you, though, I mean, there’s a shirt over it and everything–”

“Dude…it’s not about you, chill.”

You’re so convinced your entire body is covered in repulsively painful material this catches you off guard as you’re rolling your sleeve back up. You were going to look at the floor and self-loathe about it for a while, but apparently Strider actually wanted to have a part in your one-man play.

His body weight has shifted entirely away from you, he’s not even looking anywhere near you any more.

“It’s not even a big deal, dude, I’m just trying to establish some fucking boundaries.”

“It IS a big fucking deal,” You insist, “Because you’re clearly MAKING it a big fucking deal because you fucking JUMP every time I so much as come into contact with you!”

“Man,” He turns his neck just enough to actually look at you, his eyes hovering over the tops of his glasses, 

“Why do you even want to be in contact with me that bad, anyway? Who the fuck even cares? Why don’t you sit, like, half a fucking foot further away and we wouldn’t even be having this fucking made-up problem.”

“MAN, I’m sure that would work out so FUCKING well, with me sitting on top of the fucking CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL to get a fucking angle on this building that doesn’t bother your PRECIOUS sense of personal space which, by the way, is fucking ASTRONOMICALLY LUDICROUS in its scale, IN CASE YOU THOUGHT THIS WAS IN ANY WAY a fucking NORMAL WAY to operate!”

“MAN,” Boy, you two sure do feel the need to re-assert everyone’s gender in the room. How thorough of the both of you, 

“In what world do you fucking live that this is even a normal fucking thing to argue about! In what world is two dudes cozying up to each other even a thing to fight about NOT happening! Who gives a fuck!”

“Who gives a fuck! Is exactly! The thing! I should be FUCKING saying! TO YOU!” You’re screaming at someone under a foot away from you, flailing your arms wildly in the air. Slamming one of them down on the floor, you attempt the most complete form of eye contact possible with a huge pair of sunglasses in the way, 

“How are you this fucking neurotic about this, Strider? Have you never hung out in fucking proximity of another person before?”

You can’t fully see his eyes, but you know he’s returing your glare, the two of you trying to burn holes through each other’s eyes,

“Maybe I haven’t,” He frowns, “but the fact that you were all apparently having fucking cuddle puddles on Alternia doesn’t actually fucking concern me.”

“Fuck! YOU!" 

You shove your hand onto his arm, daring him to flinch away again. He doesn’t break eye contact with you.

"Man, FINE, what! Ever! Holy shit!” His eyebrows are so furrowed you can tell exactly the face he’s making even behind those glasses. “Fucking lean on me for all I fucking care, if it’s that big of a fucking deal to you!“ 

"Yeah! Fine! What fucking ever! That’s EXACTLY what I want to hear!” You literally scream, ramming your entire arm onto his with enough force to communicate what a douche bag you think he’s being. Or would, if trolls had any concept of what that phrase meant.

You start re-building can town half-assedly, with most of your energy focused on putting your body weight onto Strider, just to piss him off. Ha ha, he’s so angry he’s shaking. What a petty, childish…wait. Hold on.

You look over as slowly as physically possible.

You realize with a creeping sense of complete terror that he’s fucking hyperventilating. The arm connected to yours is fucking vibrating, and he’s taking such deep breaths that it’s starting to shake his entire torso.

“Dave, holy shit!”

You pull your arm away from his, trying to put as much distance between the two of you as you can, watching in absolute horror as his chest heaves with alarming force.

Trying your hardest to resist the urge to touch him again to snap him out of it, you’re forced to watch as he finally understands he’s no longer in contact with you, his breathing finally leveling out to normal. He’s still shaking, though, and he barely manages to get onto his feet. He succeeds, though, and without looking at you, he uses what is clearly his last bit of energy to stumble back to his room.

The mayor looks absolutely mortified.

*

You’re building can town alone with the mayor, and you didn’t realize you were holding in that breath until he walked in and you let it out. You gape with little to no discretion at him as he walks over, planting himself in his usual spot between you and the mayor.

“Hey,” He offers, picking up a can of corn and continuing his building project from the night before. 

Your “hey” shuffles out of your mouth in an attempt to reciprocate, wholly uncommitted to any act of nonchalance or calm. You start building essentially the least structurally sound piece of equipment can town has ever seen, in compliance with your usual goals as a can town planner. You lapse quickly (and, for your nerves, thankfully), back into a state of calm and focused frustration with the cylindrical objects, attempting to get them to behave like the sensible squares they SHOULD be, mutter, mutter.

You notice it before he even does this time, grabbing your knee back up into the air as soon as it falls onto his, apologizing in awkward yelps,

“ShIT I’m sorry OH My god Dave I’m not even TRYING this time why–”

“Dude, it’s cool,”

(Why did he sit so close anyway?)

“And, like, in response to that, and before I do this,”

He’s scratching the back of his head more than could possibly be necessary, looking around from side to side as if anything besides, you, the mayor and can town could even conceivably be in the room,

“I just have to state, for, like, the purpose of it being on the record even though I know you don’t think about shit like this, that, this is just me establishing something,”

You’ve never seen him agitate so visibly, he’s looking from side to side so fast it’s almost like he’s trying to find an escape route, 

“About how, maybe, I uh, was not so cool to a bro, and that in a representational kind of way this is like, objectively the most clear way to show this, what I’m trying to convey, and, uh,”

“DAVE,” You interject with what is essentially Alpha Timeline levels of urgency, 

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

He just pauses, finally, looks at you, and slowly looks back away, losing the frantic pace in favour of an equally overt sense of anxious hesitation. Without looking at you, he rests his hand on your knee, pushing it back until it regains the same light contact with his that began the whole tirade. Without flinching away or looking back, he pulls the hand away to continue construction on his tin monument. 

His shoulders up around his ears, you watch as they slowly, slowly, slowly drop back down to a reasonable height, the tight air around him finally loosening.

You watch tentatively, trying to resist the urge to lurch your knee back up until you finally see him relax.

And, maybe it was because you were so busy arguing before that you didn’t notice, 

but,

was his body always this warm?


End file.
